Friday, 8 January 2016

Bonus Posting: Do We Need A Rob Alert?

Love the Archers. But Rob and Helen story line is
putting me off listening anymore. I just dip in and out. When will the writers
realise! I’ve listened for 20 years. Can’t bear it anymore.

When long-standing Archers fans are driven to
these desperate lengths, surely something needs to be done? From a
self-interest perspective, if people stop listening to the Archers, then they
won’t want to read this blog and we cannot have that. From the BBC’s point of
view, they must want to retain as many listeners as possible.

Perhaps one solution is to have some sort of
alert, or code, played at the beginning of each episode, or rather, those
episodes where Rob is being his usual, nasty, manipulative self. That way,
listeners like Sharon, who have reached the end of their tethers, can switch
off before any significant harm is done and their blood will remain unboiled
and their blood pressure will not go through the roof.

But what form should this warning take? One
suggestion is to adopt the theme music of ‘Mastermind’ for Rob-contaminated
episodes. Even the title (‘Approaching Menace’) seems appropriate. But if we
adopt this, we may confuse those listeners not in on the secret, so perhaps we
should retain the much-loved Barwick Green and slip the alert in between the
end of the music and the beginning of the dialogue.

So what should the alert be? Obviously it needs
to be instantly recognisable so that vulnerable listeners can dive for the off
switch. One candidate is the Star Trek Red Alert Klaxon - this was successfully
used by Neil several years ago as the ring tone when his mother-in-law phoned,
and put the household on instant alert. For those of you interested, Neil’s
tone for me was Bugs Bunny, saying “Ah, what a maroon!”

This idea could be expanded - Rob is not the only
character to annoy and exasperate Archers listeners - and we could have
separate alerts for different characters. Rooooth would obviously be a mega
sigh, possibly followed by “Oh Daaaavid”. For Lynda, I would advocate the sound
of someone’s face being slapped; it’s got nothing to do with her character,
it’s just something I’d like to do. Helen could be the recording made after
Nick Clegg’s “I’m sorry” speech, in which he constantly apologises.

For Brian, I’d pick Leslie Phillips saying “Well
hello” or “Ding Dong!” and Eddie could use his own phone ringtone of the
Wurzels’s “I am a cider drinker”. Carly Simon’s “You’re so vain” would be
perfect for Toby Fairbrother and no doubt you can think of many other examples
for your own, unfavourite, annoying character. By adopting this policy, the BBC
would reduce the number of listeners like Sharon who are giving up in despair
and fewer people would throw their radios across the room in rage and
frustration, so how about it?

The following has nothing to do with this
article’s subject, but, while typing it, I was struck by the thought that we
never hear a reference to a postman in Ambridge; we never hear letters dropping
on to a door mat, not even when it’s somebody’s birthday. Even more strange,
there never seems to be a postman visiting the post office in the village shop
- surely somebody must collect the post sometime? If Ambridge wanted to reflect
real life more accurately, every now and then we should hear the sound of a
letterbox being opened, envelopes hitting the mat and a frustrated cry of “Not
more bloody junk mail!”

8 comments:

Re your remark about the missing postman, you are right, of course, although it never occured to me before. However I had noticed that whenever a scene is supposed to happen outdoors the same chirping bird can be heard. I guess it must be following the recording crew around. Zoe

I've been listening to the archers all my life. Supper times ran according to the archers ! My husband is also an avid listener and we both can't take much more of the rob and Helen saga. He is getting under our skin ! We need it to slowly come to the end. We have our views on how it will end - can't wait to see if were right. We hate rob with a passion. That manipulative evil twisted man aaaaaargh

Please don't worry about people not reading your blog. I haven't listened to The Archers since the ridiculous (and pointless) demise of Nigel Pargeter, but I read these summaries with more pleasure than I ever got from listening to the show.

Totally agree with fed up listeners, started listening in my mid 20s but since Nigel's stupid death there have been so many crazy and irritating story lines. Tom's wedding abandonment and of course that drone of Rob slowly dragging the life out Helen. I found I had given up listening around Christmas and then came across your excellent blog as I heard an episode and wondered what had happened at Berrow Farm